The Knicks left for their five-game road trip on a winning streak and brimming with confidence. Those good feelings evaporated in a loss against the host Utah Jazz on Saturday night, and now New York moves on to Denver to face the Nuggets on Monday.
New York's four-game winning streak stopped an up-and-down start to the season, but poor shooting and leaky defense led to the loss against the lowly Jazz. The Knicks nearly overcame a 19-point deficit before Utah pulled away for a 121-106 win.
"We've been struggling on the defensive side for the whole season. When you're not making shots and you're not playing well defensively, that's a recipe for disaster," Knicks guard/forward Josh Hart said. "We've got to figure it out on the defensive end."
New York will have to figure it out quickly against a Denver team that is scoring at a high rate. The Nuggets are tied for fifth in the NBA in scoring average at 117.5 points per game despite not having Aaron Gordon for three weeks and having Nikola Jokic miss three games for the birth of his second child.
The burden of trying to stop Jokic, the three-time and reigning MVP, will fall on Karl-Anthony Towns, who is familiar with Denver from his nine seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
If the Knicks can't stop the Nuggets defensively, they will need to compensate with better offense, which didn't happen against Utah.
"There's going to be nights that you don't shoot it great," New York coach Tom Thibodeau said. "What you can't do, you can't allow missed shots to take away from the energy that you need from your defense. You have to win games different ways."
Denver is coming off a back-to-back set that started with disappointment and ended with a dominant 127-102 win against the Lakers on Saturday night. The Nuggets blew a late lead at home against the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night but bounced back to win at Los Angeles.
That victory was No. 433 for Nuggets coach Michael Malone, passing Doug Moe for the most in franchise history. It was a welcome sight after Denver's NBA Cup loss to the Mavericks, where it was outscored 15-7 in the final three minutes of the 123-120 Dallas win.
The Nuggets miss Gordon, but Peyton Watson has filled in nicely in his absence. Watson is averaging 10.0 points per game and has been a strong defensive presence in the starting lineup. He had three blocks in Friday night's loss and is averaging a team-best 1.1 blocks per game.
He's also seen the benefit of sharing the court more with Jokic, who leads the NBA in rebounds per game (13.9) and is second in assists per contest (11.3).
"I'm just more comfortable, more game experience. Simple as that. Being able to play with one of the best players to ever pick up a basketball, he demands a lot of attention and I get some looks at the rim in the halfcourt," Watson said. "In transition it's all about being confident, attacking the rim with conviction and just trying to get two points down every time."
